Six days in and we really feel ‘settled’, with our cafes we like to frequent (the staff know us), we like the market that sells really nice stuff, next door to a nice mini supermarket, one step (or two) up from Monoprix.
We had our second meal at Pizza Chic. They know us too, especially since Scott speaks pretty good Italian to the pretty Italian manager.
I limp up to the Caves de la Mère Germaine to replenish my wine. It turns out that the guy who manages the place used to work at our own wine emporium here in Ludlow (!) Yes, it is a small world.
As we whiled away our afternoon, TB started looking at all the restaurants on Rue du Dragon and found three right next door to each other, owned by Chef Cyril Lignac: Le Bar, Aux Près, and Dragon and booked a table for tonight.
Scott had a wasabi margarita and I had something called Last Apple. Both outstanding.
As was the food, at least for me. I started with a ceviche, really perfect little mound with bits of avocado snuck in amid the fish, onions and mild chilis. The Langoustine ravioli was very tasty but not quite hot enough, temp-wise: Tasty but tepid. Scott’s sweet and sour shrimp could have used some of his favourite hot sauce to spice it up a bit. But overall, the evening was a very good experience.
We strolled back up the street to our fave little cafe to watch the travelogue again. This time it was Santorini in Greece. Lots of cruise ships out in the bay and a whole load of tourists in the streets. Not a place either of us is interested in.
Friday, we had lunch at one of our discoveries from last time, Café Laperouse. This elegant little restaurant adjacent to the museum Hȏtel de la Marine on Place de la Concorde, has been around for a while. They boast that they were the official providers of lemonade to the King.
We were joined by a very good friend from my high school days in Grand Rapids Michigan. So much fun to see her after all these years. The restaurant is abuzz, lots of upmarket tourists, or at least speaking in foreign tongues: German, Asian, American and of course French.
For lunch: a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, foie gras for me, caviar for TB, endive salad for Sara. Scott followed with their famous smashed cheeseburger, Sara with a veal escalope, me mini fish and chips. Rum baba to finish.
Saturday is a lazy-ish day. Lunch was the yellow chicken TB roasted yesterday. Superb on a baguette with just black pepper. The buttery texture of the flesh needs nothing more.
We ventured out in search of pipe tobacco and Chartreuse.
There were seats free in the back of the Chartreuse shop/museum and we ordered something called the Last Word. I looked it up recently and found that it’s a famous cocktail that’s been around since just before prohibition. According to liquor.com, “The Last Word was first served at the Detroit Athletic Club, circa 1915. Created just before the start of Prohibition, likely by a bartender named Frank Fogarty, it’s one of the cocktail canon’s most successful Prohibition-era drinks.”
I popped back into the tobacco shop next door to see if I could find a similar brand to our neighbour’s ‘Clan’ tobacco. Well, the guy comes back out with … Clan! Apparently I was pronouncing it wrong. Clan as in the Scottish word is not how they pronounce it here. It’s more like the clahn, with the n nearly silent. Eureka!
Walking home, I’d forgotten how creepy it is to walk the very crowded Boulevard St. Germain on a Saturday. I guess no season is a slow season.
Dinner. Rue du Dragon, this time an Italian eatery, not one of Cyril’s. It's called Divina Commedia, where Scott had a true minestrone he loved. One of those soups where everything left over in the fridge is tossed in. I had a surprisingly tasty, light tuna carpaccio before an exquisite Risotto Milano. In the centre of the bowl was a beautiful slice of bone, with marrow intact. I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.
For Sunday we lunched at Cyril Lignac’s Aux Prés, the most upmarket (read ‘expensive’) of the three on Rue du Dragon. I started with a carpaccio of scallops, almost more like a ceviche, but very tasty. Scott’s first course were spicy crispy shrimps. He was happy about the spice. The next course: a very rich and tender beef shoulder in a dark rich sauce. I had a lobster with frites. All fantastic. I started with a coupe of Deutz Champagne then on to a Côte de Beaune white. It was a little disappointing that my after-dinner Calvados was cold.
The night ended badly, at least for Scott: he punished himself, again, by watching the New Orleans Saints lose. Again.
Bon soirée!
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